It had been weeks
by greenlineprods
Summary: Luke and Lorelai break up. And make up.


A/N: Some of this actually happened on the show. Some of it didn't. Sorry for the absolute, unapologetic cheesiness of this story.

Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, even though I wish they were.

**It had been weeks...**

Lorelai rested her head on Luke's chest, one hand on the TV remote, the other around his waist, while Luke sleepily played with her hair. As she flipped through channels, Lorelai thought about how lucky she was to have finally found someone who would put up with all of her annoying quirks and habits. She finally landed on _The Daily Show_ and got absorbed in the show.

Luke opened his eyes long enough to catch a glimpse of what Lorelai was watching. "Hey, who's that?" he wondered aloud, and then wondered to himself why he even cared. It was amazing how many things Lorelai could make him be interested in.

"That, my friend, is the incomparable Jon Stewart," remarked a giddy Lorelai.

"Should I be worried?"

"I don't know, you seem pretty happy with that pretty girl you met at my parents' wedding." As she said this, Luke thought he detected a bit of actual trepidation in Lorelai's voice. He laughed a little to himself at the absurdity of this.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Wha—oh nothing. That was funny – what Jon just said."

"It's a commercial, Luke."

"Oh, right."

"What's going on? Oh my god, you really are planning on dumping me for that hussy aren't you?"

Luke laughed again.

"Stop that!" exclaimed Lorelai.

"No, nothing, I'm sorry. It's just… I just… love you. You know that, right?"

"I'm sorry. You what?"

"You think I build shelves and buy TV's for just anybody? I wouldn't even let Rachel move the milk."

* * *

It had been weeks. Lorelai never thought of herself as one of those women who sat around wallowing over how long it had been since she'd last seen her boyfriend. Well, ex-boyfriend now. But she knew it had been a couple weeks since she'd seen him, and that wasn't good. Not that she's keeping track or anything. Even before…everything got complicated, she always felt something was amiss when she and Luke were fighting. Don't tell anyone that, though. You'll kill her reputation as Wonder Woman.

For someone not keeping track though, Lorelai had relived the week following the wedding-vow-renewal-thingy hundreds of times, trying to figure out how she screwed everything up so quickly. One moment she was bantering with Luke about Jon Stewart, and the next she was breaking into his apartment and abusing his answering machine. All of the in between stuff was a big blur of fancy dresses and alcohol and Christopher and Emily and Luke walking away before she got a chance to stop him. And now, weeks later, she wouldn't even know where to begin to apologize to him, due to all the blurriness.

In an effort to return the favor of being a good caretaker, Rory had given her the wallowing speech. "You made me sit with you and eat tons of ice cream and watch silly movies when I broke up with Dean. Now it's my turn to teach you your own lesson," she had said. Lorelai refused to listen, though. "I refuse to be the kind of girl," she had said, "who just falls apart because she doesn't have a boyfriend."

"Funny," Rory had said, "that's exactly what I said to you, and you still made me wallow."

Yet here she was, three weeks or so (she really had last count) later, and she still hadn't wallowed, because wallowing would require thinking, and thinking is bad. She had turned her anger and frustration into ambition, and drove her employees (and her daughter) crazy with it. Every room at the inn had perfectly matching sheets and curtains, perfectly made beds, and specially ordered pillow mints.

She was trying to avoid going home alone, or going to Luke's, or having to talk to anybody, especially her parents, and as far as Lorelai was concerned, it was working. She'd done this before… back when Luke had left her alone for the whole summer and Rory was still being a stubborn teenager in Europe. She hoped it would work this time, that she could distract herself enough to not think about what she didn't want to think about.

However, what she didn't realize (again) is how stressed she was, and how nuts she was making everyone. When Derrick quit, she believed him when he said he was going back to school full time. When Jackson stopped delivering her vegetables, she believed him when he said he needed to prepare for the new baby. And when Sookie took her maternity leave two weeks early, she believed her when she said she wasn't feeling well.

With half her staff missing, Lorelai suddenly found herself with nothing to do, no one to boss around, and no one to complain to about it, leaving her time to think. And that was bad. So she sat down at her desk, something she hadn't done since… well since she had perched on that desk in a very different position… but she's not thinking about that now. She sat down at her desk and picked up the phone.

"Hello, you've reached Rory Gilmore. I'm either in class, or at the library, or at the paper, or trying to talk Paris off a ledge. If after all that, you still feel the need to interrupt me, leave a message and I might call you back."

"Rory, that message has to go. Try something like this: 'this is Rory Gilmore, exceptionally gifted Yale student who seems to have forgotten all about her mother, who fed her and clothed her for the first 18 years of her life.' Where are you? Call me!"

As she hung up the phone, she didn't feel one bit better. Surveying the disarray she had left in her office _definitely_ wasn't making her feel better, so she bolted. Lorelai dashed past the front desk, shouted at Michel to keep an eye on things, and hurried outside. She wasn't sure where she was going, but she needed to get out of there. She needed to go anywhere that would distract her from thinking about you know who, because thinking is bad.

* * *

Meanwhile, Sookie and Jackson strolled arm in arm towards Luke's. They both knew how Lorelai felt about them eating there, but Sookie had been dragged into their fights too many times, and she refused to do it again. She knew they were going to make up eventually, and she wasn't going to help Lorelai act like a dumbass. Besides, since the last few weeks of her pregnancy, all she wanted to eat was Luke's burgers and fries. Perhaps she was making up for what Lorelai was not eating. Nevertheless, she needed her daily fix, and today was no exception.

As it turned out though, today was going to be the exception after all. As Sookie and Jackson approached, Luke's looked extraordinarily quiet.

"What's going on?" Sookie asked Jackson, as if he had some kind of psychic powers. He told her as much.

"What, do you think I have some kind of psychic power that I can tell you what goes on in every restaurant in town?" asked Jackson, incredulously.

"Well, you are town selectman. You're supposed to know these things. Plus, you supply his vegetables."

"I don't pretend to know the inner workings of Luke's brain. That's Lorelai's job."

Sookie chose not to respond to that last comment. Instead, she focused on trying to figure out what was going on.

"Oh my god, Jackson."

"What, Sookie?"

"Look," she said, as she simply pointed to the "closed" sign on Luke's door.

* * *

Lorelai decided to check in on Sookie, since she hadn't seen her in a couple of days, and her house was the only place she could think of where she might be able to get her mind off what she was not thinking about. Plus, she might be able to get a good meal out of it, something she was sorely lacking since the thing she's not thinking about happened.

As she was walking, her phone rang.

"A ha! My long lost daughter! To what do I owe this honor?"

"Mom, I talked to you yesterday, and you called me three times today."

"It's not my fault you had to go get an education," Lorelai whined.

"Mom, what's up?" an impatient Rory asked.

"Nothing is up, I just wanted to say hi."

"I know when something's up. You call incessantly, and then when you get me on the phone, you pretend like you're just calling to say hi. So I repeat, what's up?"

"Not much. What's up with you?"

"Have you talked to him yet?"

"If you're referring to Michel about scaring our customers with his dogs, then yes, I have asked him not to do that. Didn't work, though. I'm telling you, that man makes me want to put my head through a wall."

"Not Michel, Mom."

"Oh. Then no. So how's that class with the really long title I can never remember? Something about History or Women or something?"

"Mom, you have to talk to him."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"Rory, I don't want to talk about it. I don't even want to think about it."

"If you're not going to listen to me, then I can't help you."

"I am listening to you, I'm just disagreeing with you."

"Fine. But you have to deal with this."

"Goodbye, Rory."

Lorelai slammed her phone shut in disgust. This was exactly the problem. She didn't want to deal with it. She couldn't deal with it. Not yet anyway. Why was everyone insisting that she needed to? Don't they know that Lorelai Gilmore is the queen of _not_ dealing with it?

* * *

She tried to think up more ways to not deal with it as she walked to Sookie's, which only caused more memories to dredge up in her brain, which caused her to concentrate even harder on not thinking about it. The whole process made her brain hurt.

Lorelai knocked on Sookie's door, hoping she wasn't sleeping. When Sookie answered, she immediately looked concerned for her friend.

"My brain hurts," Lorelai blurted out.

"What, honey?" a confused Sookie asked, "come in, sit down."

"My brain hurts. For the past couple of weeks I've been brainstorming about the inn because I was trying to occupy it in order to not think about you know what, but all this not thinking has made me think about the not thinking, and now I'm thinking that I shouldn't be thinking at all because that's what got me into this mess, and now my brain hurts."

"Wow. That does sound painful."

"You think?"

Sookie thought for a moment. "Ok, Lorelai, you need to calm down. Now I know I'm the pregnant emotional one here, but for once I'm thinking clearly and I think you and I both know how to fix this problem."

"No."

"Why won't you listen to me here? Why do you think Jackson stopped delivering your vegetables? Why do you think Derrick said he was going back to school when actually he got a job at the Fluffy Bunny in Vermont? Why do you think I am sitting at my kitchen table trying to talk some sense into you instead of at work, making you a fabulous chocolate cake that you are in desperate need of? You have been acting like an idiot, and I'm sorry Lorelai, but you seem to be the only one who doesn't know that."

Lorelai regarded Sookie for a moment. "Derrick really got a job at the Fluffy Bunny? Traitor."

"He loves you, Lorelai. I have told you this a hundred times before, I don't know why you can't see it."

"Who, Derrick? Because I thought I saw him checking me out last week. No wonder he left. Must've been awkward for him."

"Lorelai! I don't understand the problem here."

"Clearly."

"Then explain it to me, because so far, I'm failing to understand why you would throw away something that you know is so damn good."

"That's exactly the problem. I can't explain it to you. I don't know what happened. One minute we were playing in the snow" –

"Like in Love Story?" Sookie interrupted, as was her trademark.

"That's what I said, and I had to explain it to him, which completely ruined the moment, but nonetheless, one minute we were playing in the snow, and the next minute, we're fighting, saying awful things to each other, and then I'm folding the toilet paper into triangles."

"Hun, you have to talk to him," said Sookie.

"No."

"Lorelai, have you by any chance walked by Luke's recently?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Right. No reason, I was just wondering."

"Why? What's going on? Is he ok? Sookie!"

"No. Nothing. Just think about what I said, ok?"

Lorelai nodded. Sookie could see the wheels in her head turning again as she sat and stared at the wall. "I know he loves me," Lorelai practically whispered, "that's the problem."

"That doesn't sound like a problem to me, hun," said Sookie.

"God, I screwed this up so badly," lamented Lorelai.

* * *

So here she was, on her way to Luke's, even though she had no idea what she was going to say to him.

As Lorelai spotted him from across the street, her worst fears were confirmed. There was Luke, flannel clad as always, packing up his truck and hanging a "closed" sign on the diner. A few onlookers in the form of Babette and Patty lurked in the square, but otherwise, it seemed like an everyday occurrence. As if it was everyday that Luke gave up his life's work and moved away from the town he grew up in just because of some silly fight with his girlfriend. This wasn't right, and Lorelai was going to fix it. She only had to figure out how.

Taking a deep breath and smoothing her hair, Lorelai stepped across the street.

Startled, Luke exclaimed, "what the hell are _you_ doing here?"

Crap. He hadn't meant to sound so harsh, but he couldn't help it. Lorelai had been purposefully avoiding him for a good three weeks, and now she just shows up out of nowhere? What was he supposed to say?

Lorelai looked taken aback, but regained her composure. "Small town. Sort of have to go through the middle of it in order to go anywhere."

"You've managed to avoid it thus far."

"Luke," she said, as if that were a whole sentence, and took a step closer to him. She wanted to reach out, to touch him in some way, as if that would make everything better. But she knew better, and held back.

Luke's voice softened a little, but the grudge was still there when he responded with, "what do you want, Lorelai?"

"I want to talk to you."

"It's a little late for that."

"Luke, what are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"It looks like you're leaving."

"Then that's what I'm doing."

"You can't do this."

"And why is that?"

"Because you can't."

"What do you care anyway?"

"I care."

"No you don't."

"Come on, Luke, you know I care about you."

"No, Lorelai. You care about you. You did the same thing when I moved in with Nicole. You're just worried that I won't be here to serve you coffee anymore."

Damn. He did it again. Why did he have to keep saying such crappy things to her? They shared the inability to process their thoughts before spewing them, which is what led them to this place to begin with.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean that," Luke tried again.

"It's okay. I guess I deserved that. But you know it's not true."

Luke saw the sadness in Lorelai's eyes, and wondered how he had managed to hurt her so badly. So many things had been said, or not said, that he didn't even know where to begin to fix it.

"I need to go."

Lorelai felt defeated. Once again, her mouth had run away with her, and everything that came out of it was completely inane and unhelpful. At one point in her life, Lorelai would've considered her ability to talk herself out of any situation her greatest asset. Now she seemed to have lost that skill, and was having trouble regaining coherence.

She watched as Luke put the last box in his truck, and spotted his blue baseball cap on top. Upon second glance at Luke, she realized he was back to wearing the old one he had practically worn out before she bought him the blue one. Looking back at the box, she also spotted the blue and white flannel shirt she always wore, and wondered when he had even taken that back from her. Upon third glance, she recognized several more of the items in the box, and realized that Luke, who fancied himself an unsentimental stoic, had a Lorelai box. "Maybe he really has moved on," she thought, and then remembered that thinking was bad.

Before she knew what hit her, she was blurting out, "Luke, wait!"

Great, Lorelai, really profound.

However, the urgency in her voice made Luke actually turn around this time. He stared at her.

"I love you," Lorelai said, her voice lowering to almost a whisper.

"What?"

"You can't leave because I love you. And I want my shirt back."

Luke regarded her for a minute, trying to figure out if he had heard her correctly, and whether or not that was what he needed to hear. He finally decided he was tired of thinking about it, seeing as that was all he had done in the past three weeks. Unlike Lorelai, Luke tended to spend too much time thinking, reflecting and stewing over what went wrong, and he was tired of it.

He was leaving because he had promised this crazy town way back when that he would, and it seemed like a good solution to distract him from all the memories. He knew that wasn't really a good reason to leave the town he grew up in, but he had hoped that getting some distance would clear his head.

But leave it to Lorelai to mess up his plans once again.

"I believe that's MY shirt," Luke said, as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her.

"Yeah, we'll see about that. Come on, I'll help you unpack."

Luke took a step back. "Not so fast there, smartass. What makes you think I was leaving because of you? This whole town doesn't revolve around you, you know."

"That's funny, because I thought I heard Kirk and Taylor debating over whether to call it 'Lorelailand' or 'Gilmoreville' last week. I think 'Queen Lorelai' has a certain je ne sais quoi, don't you?"

Lorelai started to unload boxes from his truck.

"You are so annoying. You think you can just waltz in here, tell me you love me, and I'll just change my whole plan?"

"Hey, I'm having a major breakthrough here, although I don't know about the waltzing part."

* * *

Later, after all the boxes had been unpacked and Lorelai had taken it upon herself to return all of herthings to their rightful places in Luke's apartment, Lorelai sprawled across Luke's bed (well, sprawled across _Luke_ to be more exact), clad only in her beloved flannel shirt.

For once, she was silent for a few moments as she felt Luke's hands tangle in her hair and listened to him start to doze off.

"Hey Luke," whispered Lorelai.

"How do you always manage to do that two seconds before I'm about to fall asleep?"

"Because I make it my life's goal to torture you. Now listen to me."

"I think that's how I got into this situation in the first place."

"Cut the cute ok? I have something I want to say to you."

Luke opened his eyes and looked at her expectantly.

Lorelai took a deep breath and announced, "Just for the record…. I really missed you. I didn't want to admit it, because that's not me, I'm not that girl who falls apart. But I did. I missed you. I guess I just wanted you to know that."

"I do know that," said Luke simply.

"And… I'm sorry," said Lorelai.

"I know that too," said Luke, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. To him, though, it was. He couldn't understand why Lorelai was going on and on about how sorry she was when really all he wanted was for her to realize how much he loved her.

Neither of them said anything else for several minutes, just reveling in their renewed closeness. Luke thought about how miserable he had been without Lorelai, and realized something.

"Lorelai…" Luke whispered.

"God! I was practically asleep. You scared the crap out of me! What is it now?"

"I was about to tell you how much I love you, but now I'm reconsidering."

"Fine. Go ahead. But make it quick, I have places to be in the morning," said Lorelai, but opened her eyes anyway, and Luke saw the familiar sparkle they got when she was messing with him.

"These last few weeks sucked big time. I missed you more than I was comfortable with, and that scared me. That's why I was leaving. I thought if I could get some distance, I could get you out of my head and things would go back to normal. But then, as usual, you showed up at my diner today, and the second I saw you I knew things would never go back to normal."

Luke paused, thinking about what to say next.

"Go on," urged Lorelai.

"I'm so sorry I hurt you. All I wanted was for you to know how much I love you, but when Christopher showed up and your mother said all that stuff she said and did all those things she did, I was convinced you didn't, and that no matter what I did, you would never get it. So I did what I always do, I shut down. I'm so sorry."

"Luke, I've always known you loved me. That was why it hurt so much when you left. Because I knew it wasn't over. Now, we're both sorry, we missed each other, we love each other, can we finally put this topic to rest and go to sleep? I haven't been sleeping a lot lately, and I'm guessing you haven't either."

With that Lorelai rested her head on Luke's chest, and he wrapped his arms tighter around her. Within minutes, they were both out cold.


End file.
